Friday, November 10, 2017

NATIONAL VELVET (MGM 1945) Warner Home Video

Last year the
Warner Archive has had a minor love-in with the great Elizabeth Taylor; and
quite simply – who could blame them? Despite innumerable personal tragedies
(and almost as many husbands) this violet-eyed zeitgeist could dazzle a room
simply by entering it. She took Hollywood to task on more than one occasion and
rewrote the terms of her own contracts and career. She came close to the brink
of death several times, and, suffered life-long debilitating pain from a riding
accident incurred while she was still a child. She amassed an obscene
collection of vintage jewels, became an ardent crusader for AIDS research and
took her personal life more seriously than any movie role. And yet, she
remained steadfastly loyal to her nearest and dearest friends; Montgomery Clift,
Roddy McDowell, Rock Hudson and Michael Jackson among them. Yes, we could go on
and on about Elizabeth Taylor. But why? Ah, now therein lies the great mystery
in Taylor’s popular appeal. For there have been other glamor queens with
equally as colorful back stories to tell; other philanthropists whose altruism
took precedent after the footlights faded, and so on and so forth. Yet, there
has never been another Elizabeth Taylor. Surely, never again will we see the
content of her character, depth of her compassion, scope of her sincerity, and,
monumental stature in her radiant physical beauty emanating from beyond the
prosceniums at our local movie houses. The era that bore an Elizabeth Taylor –
and others like her – is gone; sadly too, the legend herself. Mercifully time,
while unkind to the flesh, has been immeasurably a comfort to her reputation as
a star of the first quality. This has only ripened with the advancing years.

I suppose it is
redundant to point out that no life writ as large as Taylor’s can be
perfect. But I equally suspect the
public has long since cut Liz some slack; although, in her own time she was pilloried
as a sexual wanton and home-wrecker.
Lord knows, Elizabeth had more than her share of misfires – some, she
lamentably created for herself. Yet, who among us is living that ‘perfect
know-it-all life’ without incident, self-inflicted idiocy and a touch of the
bizarre for which only the old adage about ‘truth’
being ‘stranger than fiction’ can
suffice? And further to the point, who would be able to weather half as much as
Elizabeth Taylor with even a modicum of as much fortitude, self-assured
defiance, accepting nonchalance, solid introspection, a good sense of humor
and, of course, class? Because, in the final analysis, Elizabeth Taylor took
her lumps, but kept coming back; reputation oft bloodied, but unbowed. I would
have her kind again and ‘no’ - not without the miscalculations, oversights and stumbling
blocks set for her to gregariously trip over with unbridled courage.

There has always
been a rather insidious notion that the people Hollywood deifies as ‘stars’ are
somehow fair game for the rest of us to abuse; as open to our adulation as to
our callous mockery and venom; smut hurled from the peripheries at their
Teflon-coated public personas. In more recent times, the tearing down of a
‘name’ has become something of a blood sport, with gossip rags, D-listed,
Enquirer-infused gristmills and celebrity death watches, the absolute purgatory
for our insatiable need to know. For more than 66 years, Elizabeth Taylor
remained a popular punching bag in the press. Her likeness plastered next to
‘new’ and ‘revealing’ headlines about her private life, still commanding a fee
and selling fresh copy while waiting in line at the supermarket. If anything, Hollywood today, and our novice
impressions of what goes on behind closed doors has become more insidious and
distasteful. Yet, even by 1950, Joseph L. Mankewicz, using Bette Davis as his
megaphone in All About Eve, put it
thus about the public at large; “Autograph
fiends! They're not people. Those little beasts that run around in packs like
coyotes. They're nobody's fans. They're juvenile delinquents. They're mental
defective, and nobody's audience. They never see a play or a movie even. They're
never indoors long enough.”

But I digress.
2016 was a banner year for Elizabeth Taylor fans on Blu-ray with three great performances
released from the Warner Archive (WAC) – the custodians of virtually all her
early movie art; Who’s Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?, Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof and Father Of The Bride.
Might we be expecting too much from WAC to favor us with several more examples
of exactly why Elizabeth Taylor remains, as one Vogue reporter astutely
surmised in 1966 – “the most alluring
woman in the world.” The difficulty in assessing Elizabeth Taylor as an
actress is that she is decidedly a movie star first and foremost; the
disconnect between glamor queen and superior raw talent readily overshadowed,
despite countless examples to choose from in her cinema repertoire; National Velvet, Cynthia, A Date with Judy,
Butterfield 8, Lassie Come Home, and, Raintree
County among the list of contenders. Personally, if I had to pick only one of
these to round out WAC’s admiration and output of Taylor-made classics in high-def,
the vote would be cast for her breakout performance in National Velvet.

In the 1940s,
Louis B. Mayer assumed absolute control of MGM; for a time, its undisputed
monarch and one of the highest paid personages – not only in Hollywood. Whereas
MGM’s late V.P. in Charge of Production, Irving G. Thalberg had endeavored to
shape the studio’s reputation in adult-themed and uber-sophisticated
melodramas, time-honored literary adaptations and the occasional super colossus
musical revue, Mayer’s ambitions for MGM, a kingdom unto itself, were more
firmly rooted in the idyllic and romanticized childhood he never had. Only part
of Mayer’s fascination in extolling the virtues of youth resided in his
affinity for sentimental, bucolic stories. Indeed, Mayer considered Metro an
extension of ‘his family’, seating himself at its head as the benevolent
patriarch with a ‘father knows best’
approach to film-making and a firm hand administered to all who dared cross
him. Some stars fell into line. Others bitterly resented his interventions.
Thus, in his own time, popular opinion of Mayer widely varied from formidable
showman and star-maker to despicable philistine; a brute, who ostensibly
believed in God, country and the Ten Commandments…even the ones he never obeyed.

Almost
immediately following Thalberg’s untimely death in 1936, Mayer set about
reconfiguring Metro’s studio output to suit his own ideals. He allowed certain
contracts to elapse. Hence, Garbo, Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer (three who
had clawed, kicked and risen like cream to the top of their chosen calling in
the late 1920’s and reigned supreme as screen queens throughout the 1930’s) –
once considered indispensable – were shown the exit by 1941; politely, perhaps,
but without fanfare or even a simple ‘thank
you’ to mark the time they had put in and formidable monies earned for the
company. In tandem, Mayer also sent his scouts across the fruited plain in
pursuit of younger, more malleable talent, cheaply acquired without the
headaches of knowing their own minds; dangling the carrot of stardom before
their eager noses, but only if they did and behaved exactly as he commanded. At
roughly this same interval, unbeknownst to anyone at MGM, an English lass had
been sent abroad to escape the London blitz. The arrival of this striking
violet-eyed specimen inside MGM producer, Samuel Marx’s front office was, in
retrospect, the stuff from which dreams – and very long careers – are made. For
months, Marx had been hounded by a travelling art gallery dealer to interview
his 11yr old daughter. Marx resisted. The man persisted. And so, eventually, a
brief meeting was scheduled. Marx would later recount how he had intended
merely to appease Mr. Taylor without seriously considering the child. Alas,
even as a girl, Elizabeth Taylor possessed a remarkable, almost hypnotic
beauty. “She came in this little purple
riding outfit,” Marx recalled, “Her
cap was purple. Her eyes were purple. I nearly passed out when I first saw
her.” Producer, Arthur Freed also had an immediate reaction to Taylor,
labeling her ‘a sport’ in reference
to his amateur horticulturalist’s appreciation for orchids. When one flower
diverges from the others, the unique bloom is called ‘a sport’. Over the next forty years, Taylor would prove a very rare
blossom; an intuitive actress, willful and distinctly knowing her own mind.

Marx and Metro
wasted little time promoting their new find. After appearing to good effect in
supporting roles in Lassie Come Home
(1943), Jane Eyre (1943, loaned out
to 2oth Century-Fox) and The White
Cliffs of Dover (1944), preparations began for Elizabeth’s first starring
role in one of the studio’s most ambitious projects to date: Clarence Brown’s National Velvet(1945). A girl and her
horse…what could be more wholesome?
Transforming Enid Bagnold’s novel into a prestige picture was the
passion project of producer, Pandro S. Berman. But that ‘passion’ would
slightly cool after Mayer insisted the picture belonged to Taylor, an
enthusiasm Berman did not share. Yet even as a child, Taylor possessed the
ability to completely captivate most any man’s heart – a power ill-served
throughout her many marriages in later years. Nevertheless, it completely won
over her director. “I really hated to call her an actress,” director, Clarence Brown
later admitted, “She was much too natural
for that.” In the meantime, Berman selected a magnificent gelding ‘King
Charles’ for Elizabeth to ride. At least the four-legged star of his picture
would be pedigreed: the grandson of Man o’ War. Despite being past his prime as
a race horse, ‘King Charles’ proved a minor terror on the set; high-spirited
and prone to biting practically everyone except Elizabeth, who cuddled and
coddled him until he was as docile as a puppy. This bond between Taylor and
King Charles baffled the wranglers. But when Elizabeth proudly told a visiting
reporter she was doing forty jumps a day in training for National Velvet, an alarmed L.B. Mayer quickly put a stop to her
excessive equestrian exercises. The last thing he needed was for his star to
have an accident. Hence, during the
climactic Grand National race, virtually all of Taylor’s spirited stunt work
was performed by a stunt double in long shot; the racing footage skillfully
intercut with close-ups of Taylor astride King Charles; the pair galloping on a
treadmill with a process plate subbing in for the background. Even so,
Elizabeth proved enough of a horse woman to appear in a spirited charge across
the windswept fields of southern California, convincingly substituting for the
white cliffs of Dover.

National Velvet is essentially a countrified
fairy-tale; appealing to children even as it remains a benchmark and gold
standard bearer in family entertainment. In retrospect, it is also one of the
best films in Elizabeth Taylor’s canon. Easily, it has remained her most
prominent and fondly recalled work as a child star. Viewed today, Elizabeth’s
performance is beyond reproach, counterbalanced by a stunning youthful vitality
with seasoned introspection well beyond her years. The rest of the picture is
as exquisitely cast. But the show undeniably belongs to Taylor’s magnificent
idealist, Velvet Brown; a simple farm girl with big dreams and the heart of a
champion to see them through. Mayer, however, was taking no chances on such an
expensive movie. Hence, ‘name above the title’ billing went to Mickey Rooney –
coasting on the ether of an envious decade of work. Rooney could do it all;
impressions, sing, dance, play sublime comedy and serious melodrama; all with
the conviction of a weathered ham. There is a fascinating chemistry – a bond of
friendship, stirring between Taylor’s wholesome Velvet and Rooney’s jaded
grifter, Mi Taylor; an enterprising young man, come in search of Velvet’s
mother (Anne Revere) after the death of his own father. Ultimately, Mi is
reformed by Velvet’s unspoken faith in him.

The other great
performance in National Velvet
belongs to veteran character actor, Donald Crisp as the stern, though
benevolent patriarch who begins every conversation with clenched fist but
ultimately finishes each merely by shaking an impatient finger. Crisp, who even
as a younger man was usually cast as the fatherly sage, found steady work
almost from the moment he came to America in 1908; appearing in nearly a
hundred silent movies before embarking on one of Hollywood’s most prolific
careers in the talkies. Indeed, Crisp’s back catalog is a rich bounty. Yet,
despite his Oscar-winning performance as the taciturn father of a Welsh mining
family in How Green Was My Valley
(1941), the actor would remain in the background for the rest of his career.
Nevertheless, at the time of his death it was unearthed that Donald Crisp was
one of the richest men in Hollywood; a behind-the-scenes power broker with a
‘banker’s sobriety’ for business interests and a valued adviser to Bank of
America, providing a steady pipeline of perennial reinvestment in the
film-making community. Crisp’s Mr. Brown
sees through Mi Taylor almost immediately. The boy is a con, unworthy of his
wife’s kindnesses or daughter’s open acceptance as the elder brother she has
never had. The Theodore Reeves/Helen Deutsch screenplay sets up an intriguing
dynamic for Mr. Brown; his patient and abiding love for the women in his life.
This trumps even his glowering and skepticism where Mi is concerned. But it
never allows Mi to forget the tenuousness of these terms. Perhaps the most
telling scene to illustrate this point occurs as Mi is elected, with Mrs.
Brown’s blessing, to go to London and secure the registration fee to enter
Velvet’s horse in the Grand National. Hocking old medals for swimming and
relinquishing cherished prize money to pay for Mi’s trip, Mrs. Brown has
invested considerably more in Mi Taylor than gold sovereigns. She recognizes,
perhaps best of all, his young man’s struggle to do right by his commitments,
even as temptation periodically presents itself as the easier route. Mr. Brown,
however, remains unconvinced. “Mrs. Brown
wishes you a safe journey,” Mr. Brown explains to Mi, “I will merely wish you a good time.”

National Velvetis also an important stepping
stone in Angela Lansbury’s fledgling movie career; herein slightly miscast as
the boy-crazy Edwina; eldest of the Brown girls. But the movie’s anchor is undeniably, Anne
Revere’s all-seeing/all-knowing, occasionally brusque matriarch; her careworn
humanity the perfect counterbalance to Elizabeth Taylor’s euphoric enthusiasm.
Throughout the forties, Revere was a much sought-after actress; a free agent
toggling her talents between Fox and MGM; her career unceremoniously cut short
by an allegation of being a communist sympathizer. In National Velvet, Revere is perhaps at her finest as the sacrificing
matriarch who, long ago, set aside personal ambitions as a channel swimmer to
be a wife and mother. “Things come
suitable to the time,” Mrs. Brown tells her daughter, “I too believe that everyone should have the chance at a breathtaking
piece of folly at least once. Your dream has come early. But remember, Velvet,
it’ll have to last you all the rest of your life.”

Our story begins
with precocious Velvet Brown (Taylor) whose love of horses precedes her
attention span for a regular education. Velvet lives idyllically in a small
English village with her pragmatic mother (Ann Revere), stern but loveable
father (Donald Crisp) and three siblings; love-struck, Edwina (Angela
Lansbury), pert Malvonia (Juanita Quigley) and youngest, Donald (Jackie
Jenkins), whose macabre fascination with insects, illnesses and death remains
an oddity quaintly tolerated by the entire family. Into this close-knit brood
arrives the wanderer, Mi Taylor (Mickey Rooney); a traveling con given the
Brown’s address by his late father. Mrs. Brown immediately recognizes Mi’s
father as the man who once taught her to swim the English Channel. She keeps
this kernel of knowledge to herself, however. At least for the time being, Mi
Taylor needs a family to call his own. But Mi’s first attempts to ingratiate
himself are met with immediate misgivings by Mr. Brown. Nevertheless, Mi is
given a room adjacent the stable and, at Mrs. Brown’s behest, is entrusted as
an apprentice in the family-owned butcher shop. Early on Mi, learning of Mrs.
Brown’s secret hiding place for the family’s finances, contemplates making off
with the money in the dead of night.
Mercifully, an attack of conscience prevents him from acting upon the
impulse.

Meanwhile, local
farmer, Ede (Reginald Owen) has had quite enough of his incorrigible stallion,
the Pi. He decides to hold a lottery for the animal – a contest that inadvertently
makes Velvet the recipient of the horse. The Pi becomes sick with colic, but is
nursed back to health by Mi and Velvet, the two establishing a poignant bond of
friendship in the process. Velvet confides in her mother a passion to race the
Pi in the Grand National – an impossible dream since women are not permitted
into the competition. But Mrs. Brown understands a thing or two about a woman’s
perceived ‘place’ in this life; also, about the hypnotic sway of daydreams that
can take hold of the imagination, heart and mind until the dreamer is fairly
aching to burst. Mrs. Brown retreats to the upstairs attic, returning with the
medals she earned as a swimmer and 100 gold sovereigns; prize money she has
been saving. These will now be used to hire a jockey to ride the Pi in the
Grand National; also, to pay for the horse and rider’s entry fee. Mrs. Brown
implores Mi to go to London and register the horse. Believing his wife has made
a terrible error in judgment, Mr. Brown merely wishes Mi a ‘good time’ in the
big city. He does not expect they shall ever see the lad around these parts
again. Mrs. Brown is more circumspect in her critique. “What’s the meaning of goodness if there isn’t a little badness to
overcome,” she suggests to her husband. Besides, Velvet believes in Mi.

Both women’s
faith is rewarded when Mi returns, not only with the registration papers, and a
scheduled meeting to engage a professional jockey, I. Taski (Eugene Loring) to
ride the Pi, but also with money to spare, much to Mr. Brown’s astonishment. On
the day before the Grand National, Mi and Velvet meet Taski at the racing camp.
Unfortunately, Taski proves an arrogant prig – self-appointed and not terribly
interested in winning so much as merely to collect the fee for his services. Disheartened,
Mi and Velvet return to the Pi’s stall to prepare for their return home. They
have come a long way for nothing. Mi is overcome by a moment of lost ambition.
Perhaps he could ride the Pi onto victory. Alas, Velvet has other ideas: to
masquerade as the prepubescent jockey herself. Mi is vehemently opposed to the
notion at first. It’s too dangerous for one, and not at all what they agreed
upon at the start. “Do you think a race
like this is won on luck?” Mi stubbornly declares. “No,” Velvet admits, “By
knowing I can win and telling the Pi so!”
Mi suddenly realizes the Grand National has always been Velvet’s dream –
not his. He agrees to the disguise, lopping off her hair with a pair of
scissors. “I want it all quickly…”
Velvet admits, “I don't want God to stop
and think and wonder if I'm getting more than my share.”

The next day,
despite seemingly insurmountable odds, Velvet Brown rides the Pi onto victory
in England’s most distinguished race. Regrettably, she is thrown from her mount
and knocked unconscious after crossing the finish line – resulting in a
physical examination to ascertain the severity of her fall. But this
inadvertently reveals her sex and thus disqualifies her from the race. Despite
this loss, Velvet returns home a triumphant local celebrity and a national
heroine. The Browns are inundated with offers for Velvet and the Pi to appear
as a novelty act in various traveling shows and exhibitions. And although Mr.
Brown is ecstatic at the prospect of his daughter exploiting her newfound fame,
Velvet has wisely taken her mother’s philosophy to heart: ‘things have come suitable to the time’. Her dream has been
fulfilled. Time to get on with the pragmatic business of simply living. Velvet
thus and very quietly declines to make a spectacle of the Pi. Meanwhile, Mi has
decided the time has come to move on. He packs his kit and heads for the open
road. Mrs. Brown confides the truth about Mi’s father to Velvet, encouraging
her to go after him and share it. The story concludes with Velvet mounting the
Pi, riding out to the horizon to share this news with him.

There have been
other ‘girl and horse’ stories, but National
Velvettowers above the rest as a rhapsodic visual stylization with
thoroughly resplendent performances.
Cedric Gibbons and Urie McCleary’s art direction is a deft amalgam of
ole world authenticity and newfangled Hollywood magic. The many long shots in
the movie are a skillful combination of full-size, free-standing sets built on
the MGM back lot and a stunning array of matte paintings created to expand off
into the distant horizons. Filtered through the richness of 3-strip vintage
Technicolor, these painterly evocations perfectly capture the agrarian appeal
of a bygone England. Married to Edwin B. Willis’ set decoration, Leonard Smith’s
lush cinematography and Herbert Stothart’s richly satisfying score, National Velvet does everything but
call out England’s glorious age. Yet, the movie is much more than a quaintly
evocative and romanticized snapshot. It is imbued with the very best moralizing
of American ideals L.B. Mayer so valiantly treasured to preserve on celluloid.
Superficially, the picture’s appeal clings to that sweet escapism gleaned in
the very best tradition of ancient Hollywood. Yet, on a more heartfelt level, National Velvettriumphs as a very rare
‘sport’ indeed, presenting us with a highly fictionalized moment in time when
life had a more meaningful cadence and purpose. And with Elizabeth Taylor at
its helm, it remains the picture that effectively made her a star.

Those who frequent
this blog will recognize this as a re-post. While I intend not to rest entirely
on my laurels, I also do not envision a time when I will willingly set aside my
passion for legitimate classics on Blu-ray. National Velvetdeserves a Blu-ray release from the Warner Archive –
period. It is high time more national treasures like National Velvet received
their due in hi-def ahead of some of the ‘B’ and ‘C’ grade fodder I’ve seen WAC
pump out in 2017 ahead of the long list of luminaries given short shrift thus
far. Warner Home Video’s reissued DVD under their ‘family entertainment’ banner is derived from the tired old MGM/UA
Home Video release of 1997 release using the same digital files created for the
even more ancient 1994 MGM/UA LaserDisc!
Bottom line: what we have here is a transfer in desperate need of an
upgrade. While colors are generally rich and vibrant, thanks to a photo-chemical
restoration done long ago, the image has not been progressively remastered
herein. Worse, we get disturbing halos created by an infrequent misalignment of
the original 3-strip Technicolor records. Contrast is fairly solid but
age-related artifacts are present and, at times, distracting. Pixelization and
shimmering of fine details is also a problem. Again: very rough around the
edges and hugely disappointing for a movie as beloved as this. The audio is
mono but adequate. Regrettably, NO extras. How can it be we are preparing to
bid 2017 a fond farewell and still no National
Velvet on Blu-ray?!? I put the question plainly to the Warner Archive. Come
on folks! This one is a contender for sure! Everything about this classic cries
out for a full-blown digital restoration and new 1080p hi-def release. National Velvetcomes very highly
recommended for its content. But the existing transfer is less than stellar.

About Me

Nick Zegarac is a freelance writer/editor and graphics artist. He holds a Masters in Communications and an Honors B.A in Creative Lit from the University of Windsor.
He is currently a freelance writer and has been a contributing editor for Black Moss Press and is a featured contributor to online's The Subtle Tea. He's also has had two screenplays under consideration in Hollywood.
Last year he finished his first novel and is currently searching for an agent to represent him.
Contact Nick via email at movieman@sympatico.ca